Articles

A Tale of Two Revivals

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Lately Capcom has been one of the best all around publishers in the business. Their games have mostly been of high quality, and time and again they prove that they listen to and want to please their fanbase. The strange twist to all of this is that Capcom is legendary for relying on sequels and familiar franchises, yet two of their recent success stories have come from sequels (of sorts) to two of their oldest franchises, both of which were deemed risks. I am referring of course to Bionic Commando: Rearmed and Mega Man 9. These games are two different takes on the retro revival, and each demonstrate the successes and difficulties that can arise when trying to sell them. Is one better than the other, and which is more likely to be imitated in the future? Let’s break them down and take a look.

Bionic Commando: Rearmed
Rearmed is what you might call the more “traditional” approach, and unlike Mega Man 9, is an actual remake. →  Shadow of the Article

No one who worked with Eidos should ever be taken seriously

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In a new Gamasutra editorial, Keith Boesky – “a long-standing game agent and attorney as well as former Eidos president” discusses the problems with game critics. Dismissing him immediately because he was in charge of Eidos would be unfair. I’m kidding, of course. The only reason he can’t be entirely ignored is because Gamasutra publishes his articles.

Boesky actually opens up with some insightful points. Contrasting the game industry’s critics to others, he observes that ours are nearly alone in frothing over huge budget, AAA material. We do not wait for art house games with bated breath, nor condemn anything that cost over 50 million dollars to make and is 90% spectacle.

His next idea is that people of my generation and older tend to mentally separate their passive and active media. I can’t speak with knowledge about children and the way they look at games versus TV, as Boesky does, but I have noticed that my girlfriend and friends who don’t game frequently have little or no patience when it comes to cut scenes and other passive sections in games. →  It’s time to read and chew bubblegum… and I’m all outta gum.

Retrospective – Phoenix Wright

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I rented Phoenix Wright from Gamefly sometime last month. After burning through the game, I added a few brand spanking new games to the queue for the purpose of review. Instead of sending these low availability titles, they saw fit to send me the next two PW games in a row. After a constant stream of Ace Attorney over the last month, I feel it is time to take a look the series – its strengths and weaknesses – and how Capcom should handle it in the future.

The Good
Character art: The character animations convey a lot of emotion in just a few frames. It is striking to see just how much you can understand a character simply by how they move in different situations (for example, Ema Skye’s design and movements perfectly convey the idea that she wants to be an adult, but still looks and acts like a kid). Despite coming from the Gameboy Advance era, the PW games are far from a failure graphically. →  These are the games I know, I know. These are the games I know.

Fighting off the pirates – DRM points to deeper problems

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With Spore’s flagrant copy protection causing a stir, DRM is once again the hot item of debate in the gaming world. I welcome any rigorous discussion of the topic, because while most of us will agree that DRM should not be used, it most certainly will be. The more we discuss it, the louder we sound to publishers, and the better the chances that we create fair solutions.

Yet rigorous discussion is something we still seem to be waiting for. Some of the best “independent” voices in the press see fit to bring up the same pedestrian talking points that we have heard constantly, while others that try to play devil’s advocate will be scorned by gamers. I think we need to look at the issues of DRM and piracy from the proper angles, which in turn will help us determine what can and cannot be changed.

For one, the Spore fiasco proves that, without a doubt, some sales are lost through the use of DRM. →  Mrs. Article, you’re trying to seduce me.

Thoughts on filler

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While playing Professor Layton last Spring, I remember Jay asking me (before he had purchased the game himself) if it were true that the game was bad because 80% of the puzzles were simple, the kind of thing that you could solve in 30 seconds and with little thought. The answer was a yes and a no. Yes, a large percentage of the puzzles were essentially filler puzzles put in to extend the length of the game. No, I didn’t think this made it a bad game.

This lead me to think about the nature of filler in games and how we approach and accept it in different genres. For some reason, the idea of filler puzzles seemed to bother a lot of people in the online community. In some ways, I can understand this. Puzzles are fun because they’re challenging, and if you don’t have to think, they’re not nearly as enjoyable. On the other hand though, is this in any way unique to Professor Layton or the puzzle genre in general? →  Castle Readigami 2

Gaming Community Rant

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My last few weeks of gaming have been dominated by two downloadable games, Braid and Bionic Commando. While both playing each game and reading the discussions surrounding them, I came to a great personal revelation. Whenever I get into a state of severe crankiness, it isn’t because of the games I am playing. In fact, I like playing them quite a lot. My bouts of frustration and anger stem almost entirely from the gaming community.

Folks, games really are still good, even if there is a lot of crap to tread through. But the “industry” as a whole, from the companies to the press to the fans, is in a miserable state. Here are a few observations as to why this may be the case.

For one, we can argue all we want about whether games are art, or whether they are the pinnacle of entertainment. The one thing that no one can argue is that video games are software. Anyone who actually works with software knows that things can and will go wrong. →  Frankly my dear, I don’t read a damn.

Best Game Ever – Seven Kingdoms II

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Playing the disappointment that was Seven Kingdoms: Conquest got me nostalgic for Seven Kingdoms 2.

I’m not going to talk about the plot, because there is no plot. There are 12 (increased from seven) nationalities, existing alongside a half-dozen or so Fryhtans. No past or future given. The campaign is a set of randomly-generated scenarios, with the ability to carry over your king (and up to five selected “royal units”) to each successive scenario.

The heart of Seven Kingdoms 2 is in its great complexity. Simply put, no other RTS has the depth of SK2. This is somewhat hidden – after all, each nation only has three units, and one of these is the villager type, identical for all human nations. Doesn’t sound complicated, but SK2 is altogether a big numbers-game with highly intuitive systems.

For example, each unit potentially has four stats – Loyalty, Combat, Leadership, and Spying skill. Loyalty is easily explained – on a scale of 0-100, how loyal a subject is. →  All the lonely gamers, where do they all belong?

RPGs are bad “games”

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The JRPG genre is filled to the brim with games that are so ridiculously easy they are bad “games” – in the sense that a game is something you should have to play optimally to achieve success. The Suikoden series, my favorite of the past two generations, has gone from being “somewhat tricky in one or two battles” to “a breeze at its hardest, with pretty much no thought involved.”

Part of this is a plague of the genre – the phenomenon of grinding. For those who don’t want to think about what they’re doing, grinding is an easy way out. There’s no need to play perfectly when you can spend a few hours killing baddies and come back able to beat the tar out of the bigger baddies. It takes time, but then JRPGs are filled with fluff already (mostly grinding, actually), so spending a bit of time leveling up doesn’t sound too bad.

But strategy is largely lost in RPGs. →  Ikari Warriors 2: Postery Read

News We Care About Wrapup – 7.25.08

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David Cage insults MMOs
Cage, the creator of Indigo Prophecy (or if you prefer, Fahrenheit) questions the emotional significance of grinding. His points look very similar to what some of us were saying during the long comment war after this videolamer article. He goes further than we did, though, and into territory I asked one writer to avoid despite his wanting to write on it:

“I think that’s fine for people when they need to build self esteem.”

Excellent fighting words. I agree with most of Cage’s positions but remain skeptical about his talent. Indigo Prophecy had about the best first few hours of any game I’ve played but is betrayed by Cage’s (or someone at Quantic Dreams) inability to write a good story. Once the plot starts falling apart it becomes clear that the actual gameplay of IP was mundane and boring because the simple controller inputs it demands are all at the service of the story.

Grinding may be anathema to narrative but if all the game mechanics are so tightly tied to the plot that any slip in the story destroys the entire game then it’s probably a safer bet to allow your game to contain some grinding. →  Imagine all the gamers playing for today

Dual Shocked

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Way back when the Playstation was Sony’s way of saying “fuck you” to Nintendo, there was the original Playstation controller. The method behind it was simple; take what Nintendo made and make it bigger. The controller had the same layout as a Super Nintendo pad, with some added handles and two extra shoulder buttons. Not at all original, but entirely functional, Sony would begin a trend of copying and improving that they follow to this day.

Nintendo of course wouldn’t be beaten, and with the N64 they added not only an analog joystick, but the option for force feedback. Sony replied just as they did before; their new controller would have two sticks and two rumble motors, without the need for batteries. Thus the Dual Shock was born.

Thanks to its popularity and the ubiquity of the Playstation, the Dual Shock became the closest thing to a controller standard the industry has ever seen. It has been a source of inspiration for other consoles, and has been copied whole hog for generic PC controllers. →  I’m readin’ here!